YouSaid · the spoken record

Jason Calacanis

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189
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2021-02-15
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2021-02-15
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  1. “And I was just like, well, this happened twenty five years ago. And you wrote this letter now. And it just hit me like a ton of bricks. And I was just like, wow, you know, if you're hearing this, there's probably 10 people who were really instrumental in your lives, in your lives. Go ahead and call them on the phone, write them an email, or even better, just write a letter and send it to them and just tell them you're thankful. And let me tell you something. The amplification of joy in your life will go 100x, 100x when you tell somebody you love them and that you really appreciate them and that what they did for you was magical. So just then you can look it up gratitude. Gratitude is like one of these incredible forces. I'm grateful for being on the pod.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “authentic happiness. Anyway, the guy who really studied happiness and joy turns out one of the greatest amplifiers of joy in your life is to thank somebody for doing something for you. And somebody who I had helped just wrote me a letter and I got in Christmas and I had the stack of Christmas cards and I hadn't opened them. And it's the second week of January and I was just getting to like the last stack. And I opened it up and I almost missed it. This is incredibly heartwarming letter about how meaningful like certain things I had done to help along the way and how he'd always appreciated my counsel.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Oh, yeah. I'm sure there'll be many. There will be, yeah. You know, there's one expression, nobody gets their own. Nobody gets her alone. And anybody who thinks that they got their loan is delusional in kidding themselves. And they will at some point wake up and realize, oh, shit. A lot of people help me get here. I need to write a couple of gratitude letters. I got a gratitude letter the other day from a friend of mine who I helped. And it was one of the, you know about these gratitude letters people are writing? It turns out Martin Seligman and”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “You know, and you're like, yep, I remember when you catched and like all of your brothers and sisters were ripped to shreds by the seagull and said, you made it into the water. And then you made it out into the deep water. A pretty great feeling”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I mean So great. When a founder and that team get product market fit and you just know it's going to work, oh man, Lex, when Calm would email me and they'd say, you know, the company's been growing and we're not going to go out of business, but we added some sleep stuff and then we added this other function and we have a streak now We grew 10x in the last three months. And we're good. It's like, that's nice. It's real nice. I guess it's a nice feeling. Well, because so many of them die. We talked about that J curve early. Imagine it's like. Like all these baby turtles going out to the ocean, and the seagulls are ripping them to shreds, and then the sharks are eating them But then, like, a couple of the turtles make it and they become wise old hundred year old turtles.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “And they said, Jason, you're an idiot. You invest in 60 companies a year, you know, 500K at a time. You put $30 million a year to work. Come work with us. Write $150 million check. And then you can go to Aspen, Cabo and Coachella, not work. Why are you doing all this work? It's like, well, that $50 million check is like, it's like a formality. It's just like being an ATM. Like the companies are already huge by that time. I really want to meet the two people with the idea. I want to meet them in year one. I want to meet them on day zero. I want to be the guy who wrote the first, second, or third check. Want a guy with the 3000th Jack, the last check. That's fucking boring.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “And I was like, wow, Sam, that was My entire friendship with Sam Harris, that was like the one moment where I was just like, oh my God, all my life I've wondered about all these thoughts in my head. Insecurities, you know, imposter syndrome. Like, I didn't go to MIT Know I'm not the smartest guy, but somehow I made a career writing little 50K checks and now, you know, $3 million checks, but whatever, you know, little checks and being a journalist and doing this little podcast. And it's added up to something I'm proud of it. I'm 50 and I'm kind of proud of what I did. And I wake up every morning, I could retire and I kind of like what I do. I kind of like having the conversation and writing the check and then being on somebody's team. And I got offered to be in these giant mega funds.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Every time you invest. Here's the thing it costs you nothing to make this investment either. The amount of time it takes to be bitter or angry sitting at home, to be disappointed, you could just channel that same amount of energy into being loyal, loving, kind, and there for people. It just only takes the intention, right? The water is going to, those emotions are going to flow, right? Like Sam would always tell me when I was struggling in my life and I talked to him, he'd say, you know, Jason, your brain is spewing all these ideas. Imagine you're standing by a river and the river is all your ideas. You are not a slave to any one of these ideas. They're just whipping by like each of those little waves in the river. You can pick one of those ideas out and look at it and examine it and either keep it or throw it back in the river and let it go.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Hope it keeps going, but there's all these other places in the world San Paulo and Africa where people now have access to these videos. And somebody will have this video and go, Elon did it. Oh, and that guy, Jason, was his friend. Oh, and Lex does those interviews with the, oh yeah, I could do it too.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Remember what Rucker Harris says at the end? All of these memories gone, like tears in the rain? That's our existence. It just all goes away at some point. It's just these drops of rain. Each of those memories just like one snowflake or one drop of rain, and they're all lost at some point, but they're here now. And that's why we have to be there for each other. That's why I feel like what I do is so important in this world. And I get such great meaning out of it, just being a friend, just having these conversations. What you're doing on your podcast, just talking to intelligent people and spreading the word and the disciple, the gospel of what they're saying and amplifying it, you're inspiring so many people. Every podcast you get 500,000 people, a million people watch these videos and there's some kid in Sri Lanka or some little girl in Afghanistan who's going to stumble upon this on YouTube and they're going to change the world in the next century because it's not just about America. Our story is almost over, right? Like we were the story of the last two or three hundred years.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “And then The reciprocation effect, which you probably know very well, is so great in the world that anytime you're kind to people, you build this incredible bond. And then what are we at the end of the day, Lex, besides a series of memories with the people we love? That's all it is. It's just a series of memories and moments. It's just moments Ever see Blade”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “And then the roadster number 16 is in the garage next to it. And every day I walk by the two of them and I get a warm feeling in my heart because I know E did it. Against all odds, against all odds, he pulled it off. And it was that moment, that month in that 2000, I think it was probably December, January, December of 2008, I think it's just 12 years ago when you think about it, 13 years ago, it was dark. I mean, it was dark. And they almost had the same thing happen, you know, in the Model 3 production in June of two years, three years ago. And I remember him just trying to get the Model 3 out the door. And the company almost crashed then. Most of these companies have these kind of moments. And I think friendship is, you get what you give. You get what you give. And if you are there for people, you're going to feel so good about having done that.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “There's somebody who's making the jewel vaporizer. Throw rocks at that scumbag. No offense. But like whoever's making the jewel things and is selling pina colata flavor to 12 year olds. Like, throw rocks at them. Somebody's doing something abhorrent, but not E. I mean, and yeah. Anyway, that car is, you know, up the road here, sitting under a cover. With 20,000 miles on it in my garage.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “I think it was, I can tell you it was the darkest period of his life for sure And he's been very public about how dark that was. And I think this is why I have great sympathy for the entrepreneurs of the world, like the suffering and the pain. And when he talks about the suffering and the pain that all of these founders have felt, and then we're throwing rocks at them and we're criticizing them as they try to change the world and save humanity. And in Tesla's case, I mean, they weren't, you know, they weren't like delivering pizza. I mean, they were trying to get us off of fossil fuels. Like this was a big heady mission to literally save the environment, the planet, humanity. And the way they shorted that stock and they attacked him, it was always perplexing to me why any human being who is standing on God's green earth would want to throw rocks at the guy who is trying to stem the damn of global warming that is about to engulf all of us. How dare they throw rocks at that guy? There's so many people you could throw rocks at.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “No, it was a very moment for both of us. And we talk about it sometimes, those moments in time. And to your point about love.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “And the checks don't cash, but then I read a story that he's closed the money, saved the company the next week or two. And a couple of months later, the checks get cashed. And I'm like, okay, three years later, I get an email. Your reservation number, it's from Tesla. Your reservation number is serial zero one. And then five seconds later, your reservation number is 0000073. And I forward the number one to Elon. I said, You know, I can't take number one. Signature number one. I can't take that. That's yours. It's like, oh, I got five of them. And besides, you're the first person to order it. And I was the first person who had seen it”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “It's gorgeous. And he said, You really think so? I said, Yeah. So I got home and I talked to my wife, Jade, and I said, do you have the checkbook? She does all the finances and stuff like that and pays her the bills and whatever. And I said, yeah, don't tell anybody Elon's making this great car. And I wrote two checks for $50,000. And I just took out a piece of paper and I wrote E comma. Love the new car. I'll take two. I signed it. I kissed the $250,000 checks, put them in the envelope, and I fed X'd'd to them. For Monday delivery. And I said to Jade that $100,000 is going to be gone in 48 hours because it will pay for one or two days of payroll on Tesla. So we just added like instead of two weeks of Rowa, he's got 12 days.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “And I just said to him What's the range going to be? So, I think we get 250 miles. I was like, 250 miles. He's like, yeah, I think it'll be the safest car ever. I said, what is it going to cost? He says, I think this could cost eventually $50,000, $60,000. Said, Elon, if you make that car, you'll change the goddamn world. You have to, this company must survive because the roadsters for like 2,000 people in the United States, this car is for every person in the United States, every single person in the United States needs will want this car if it's $50,000. And maybe some of the people who Have 20,000 or $30,000 cards won't be able to afford it, but they'll all want it.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “It was the clay models. So it was a full size clay model. So there's human beings standing around a clay version of this tiny little blackberry picture. I'm scrolling through on the...”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “But somebody had loaned him money to keep him afloat. He was functionally bankrupt. I mean, he had the equity in the companies, but the equity was quickly becoming worth zero and the financial crisis. And he's figuring out if he's going to go on vacation for Christmas or not. And he's on the phone trying to save both companies. I said, certainly there must be some good news. And he takes out his Blackberry to date this conversation. There are no iPhones. Takes out as Blackberry and he starts swiping and he says, don't tell anybody. This is what I'm building. And he shows me the Model S. And nobody knew that he was working on the Monol S. We knew he was doing the roadster and was trying to save the company. And I looked at it and I was like, that's gorgeous.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “I know you did the one last month, and don't you have one coming up? He's like, Yeah, we've got the third one coming up. I was like, well, how's that going? Well, we'd blow that one up. There's no more SpaceX. I was like, so two weeks of money left in Tesla. And SpaceX, she blew up the first two rockets. She blew up the third SpaceX is over. He's like, yeah. I was like, I can load you a couple million dollars. I don't have like a ton. He's like, it's okay, our friend beep has loaned me some money. Yeah. And Elon's been super public about this. I would never tell the story unless he hadn't been, but he was talking, he never said who it was.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “There was a moment in time when Tess almost went out of business, and you've probably heard the story many times, but it was during the financial crisis and they were running out of money. And they said, you know, let's go get a steak. And we're in LA and we drove to Boa and I had my orange Tesla Roadster and he had his P1 or P2, like the red one that I think is in space now. And we drove to the valet and we had a steak together and we're sitting there. And I said, you know, I read the story in Gawker or whatever, you know, New York Times. You only got like five weeks of money left in Tesla. He goes, it's not true. I was like, oh, thank God. He goes, we have two weeks. I was like, oh God. I was like, well, what's going on with the rocket ship company? Know like”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “I used to go out to parties with him, and people are like, oh my God, you're Jason Calcaster. I was like, Yeah, and like, who's your friend? I'm like, that's my friend Elon. And they'd be like, what? He's doing rocket ships. But he's told this story publicly so I can tell it. And I would never talk about anything that he hasn't already talked about publicly, especially since he's a high profile. But it was a pretty funny moment.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Such a great question and totally unprepared for it Because I know we would ever ask me about that. So I think it's why you've got quite a following on your podcast is that you're able to ask these questions. I can tell one story because I don't talk about, I try not to talk about relationship with Elon that often because he's so famous now. I mean, when we met.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “To what we were saying, if this In my younger years, I would have retweeted the guys And my address, and would have called his boss and tried to get him fired, or whatever. And it's like, now I'm just like Why are we attacking each other? Life is so hard. I mean, this is what the pandemic, I think, should make everybody realize is like, look at how hard it is. Life is hard. And then just think about all the people suffering right now who are at home, the single mom or dad with two or three kids at home in public school. Maybe they've been laid off and their kids aren't learning and they're in a tiny apartment. I mean, this has been brutal for a lot of people. And not to mention people losing loved ones or maybe some people got corona and now their lungs are still not right.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “And then I got to live with this guy got fired and he's got a kid. And what is his personal destruction? Why are we doing this to each other? Life's hard enough. Life's hard. Right? Like, just get into the days”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Nuance, it matters, right? And the person could be having a bad day and they do something stupid they regret. And what am I going to do? Cancel the guy. If I had called his boss, he would have been fired immediately.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “And he wrote me back. And he said, I just wanted to thank you for how you handled it. My wife said, I'm a complete fucking moron. And he says to me on email, my wife says a complete fucking moron. And I'm really sorry, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I wrote her back. I said, I wrote her back. And I said, my wife says the same thing to me all the time.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “What if I put your home address? I have 400,000 followers or 300,000 followers. You have like 300. What if I post your address? He said, well, I wish you wouldn't do that. I was like, well, I asked you kindly to take my address down. And I said, Are you married? I said, How old are you? Are you like 25 or something? He's like, No, I'm 42. I was like, you're 42 years old. I was like, are you married? You have kids? He's like, yeah, I just had a baby like six months ago. I'm like, you're home with your wife. It's July 4th weekend. You're doxing Jason Calleganis. You're upset at me because I said something about a New York Times writer. He's like, Yeah, this is the biggest mistake in my life. I said, I tell you what, let's forget it ever happened.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Going back to the AR conversation, I'm like, okay, this person literally just doxed me. I asked him to take it down. They told me they won't take it down. And then I look, and I so then I DM him back on Instagram, on Twitter, and I said, by the way, your boss, Susan, and I know seven people in common. And these are the seven people. Here's a screenshot. What is she going to think when I call her on Monday and you've doxed me? Here's my phone number if you'd like to talk. He calls me. I said, what's going on? Why would you do this? He's like, Well, I really am pissed off about what you said about this person. I was like, You understand I've had like two or three stalkers, and anybody who's high profile like I am or medium profile, you're going to have weird things happen. You literally put my home address, you put my family at risk.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “This past summer, I had said something. I was complaining about a New York Times journalist and something I thought was wrong. And this person was a fan of that journalist. And they went, I kid you not, onto my social media account. Found a picture I'd taken about how blue the sky was one day. Reverse image search the tree line. Found the tree line on Google Image search somehow with a reverse image search found an old listing that some broker had listed on their like website of my house. And then posted my home address, the value of my home. On Twitter. And I'm like, what is going on here? So I call the person. And I look them up and they work in private equity in Boston. And I look and I'm like, this person works in July 4th week. So, and I when I look at the person's LinkedIn, we have seven people in common.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “And the fact that people don't look at people's intent, if you hurt somebody's feelings or you disrespect somebody or you do something mean or whatever, I always look at the intent, you know? And I've had people attack me and I look at the intent and I'm like, that person feels bad about themselves. Or maybe I said something and I insulted them and that's why their blowbacks there. So I always try to think, what's the intent of the person? And then almost universally you talk to somebody and you find out you ascribe some crazy intent that's not there. And they're like, oh yeah, you know what happened? I got in a fight with my spouse and I didn't sleep last night and I've had a lot of anxiety about my business. And I just snapped and said something about you. And it's like, oh, okay. Like, I literally had somebody on Twitter.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “No, I mean, I think he told me that he regretted some of the things he said. He said publicly on the podcast, like, listen, I was a little hot. I may have said things in the heat of the moment. But I don't live with too much regret because I always think about intent. It's one of the nuance and intent have been totally lost. The idea that we could have any kind of a nuanced discussion about things seems to have been forgotten.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “I mean, I love Tamoth. I mean, we play cards last night. We're besties. And, you know, I would literally jump in front of a bullet room.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “And then over time, we've started to see the explanation come out. And people who are friends are going to have disagreements. In the podcast, it happened to happen very publicly. And we didn't know it was going to become the number one story. In the world. If Trump still had his Twitter handle, this would not have been a story Trump would have said something about GameStop and he would have co opted the entire conversation. So, in a way, going back to our censorship discussion, I might actually be in favor of Trump being censored. Only because how delightful has it been since January 20th?”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “So, anyway, we just talked about it offline and we decided. We didn't pre game that episode, and I happened to be skiing with my family. I had taken the first vacation since goddamn pandemic started. And I was having a wonderful time. And then this whole thing blows up. I'm coming off the mountain, just having a great time with my daughter skiing. And, you know, and then I'm mixing it up with him. And, you know, he had a short fuse about it because he was triggered, he told me, because he really feels like he's fighting to defend, you know, the everyman. And I was like, that's what my team's doing. That's why they named the company Robin Hood We're on the same side here”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Might not be a coincidence. Anyway, we upgraded the two Davids firmware. We're going to upgrade your firmware after this. I'll give you, yeah. You're on the 1.5. You have the three emotions now, or should we add fourth? No. If you want to go with joy.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “And it's my number three investment. And Chamath has a competing company, SoFi. And he's killing my guys. And then I started killing his guys. And then all of a sudden we're like, wait a second, we're best friends. And we're swinging our swords at each other and we're a group of the seven samurai who fight together. When did we turn on each other? And then everybody else was on the pod, the two Davids, who, you know, both on the spectrum a bit, they got the last burgers or whatever. No offense, Lex. Non-Taken.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “Loyalty means everything to me. I grew up in Brooklyn, where if you were not loyal, And you were not loyal to your crew, then you were a Ronin. You were out there on your own flailing in the, you know, trust me, you do not want to be on your own in 1970s, 80s, Brooklyn, Manhattan. Like, you need to have a crew with you. I've gotten into, you know, you don't want to get into a fight with 10 guys and be alone or just be with you. You need a crew to survive. So I just learned early and my dad owned a bar just drilled into me being loyal. And so for whatever reason, I'm a bulldog when it comes to loyalty. And Shamath came out and said, you know, these guys need to go to jail and they're scumbags. And I'm trying to defend them. And I'm in a position where I can't defend them because I don't have complete information. There is no complete information. It's in the heat of the moment. And then it becomes the number one story.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “You have really three choices. You can either fight for your team, you can go silent, or you can throw your team under the bus. And I've watched investors throw the team that they invested in that made them a bunch of money under the bus, not acceptable to me, and being quiet is not acceptable to me. So I always ask the founder, do you want me to, is it okay if I go out and defend you publicly? If they say yes, I do it. And then beautiful.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “Mistakes were made, we're going to solve them. This is a group of people with great intent who want to make the world a better place. And you know what? I was hated for a period of time with Uber. I was hated for it last week with Robin Hood. I got a lot of blowback. But I think in both of those cases, eventually I was right. Uber's doing great stuff in the world. Robin Hood's doing great stuff in the world. And I like to be loyal to my investments and my partners to just, I feel like if you invest and you're on the team.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “We had a private discussion just one on one. And we said, listen, we love each other, we're besties, we've always been there for each other. What happened here? And what happened there is, I'm fiercely loyal to my folks, whether it's Chamath or Travis from Uber or Sachs or whoever. I'm just a loyal guy. And I'm always ride or die with my founders. If I invest in them, even if they make a mistake, and Uber made plenty of mistakes, I always went on CNBC, on my podcast, and said, hey, we're going to fix these things. I'm in touch with the team.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “And there's a vacuum of information. We don't know. And the Russians are trying to compromise everybody. So would you call it a conspiracy or would you call it an attempted conspiracy? There was no conspiracy here. What it was was Robinhood needed to raise billions of dollars to say Solvent in all likelihood. And they weren't allowed to talk about it. So they were forced into not talking about it in all likelihood and had to come up with that money or shut down. And then what got me upset with chamoth and we had a talk afterwards that people don't know about. I'll talk about it here for the first time on Sunday. We had to have a little, we had to air it out, yeah.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “And if you do meet with the Russians, you are probably a useful idiot. You probably should tell the FBI. Like, they're just a bunch of idiots in all likelihood. Who knows? That's a fact.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “What is the nature of the disagreement? He felt that Robin Hood turned off trading because the hedge funds told them to and that they were bowing down to the pressure of the hedge funds. That's not true, but in a vacuum of information Know what happens to people's minds conspiracy theories abound, and sometimes there is a conspiracy theory, and sometimes there's just the appearance of impropriety or a bunch of related things. Like when you look at the Trump situation with Russia, like was Trump trying to coordinate with Russia or were the Russians just screwing with a bunch of neophyte idiotic dipshits like, you know, Donald Trump Jr. who don't know any better and they don't know that you shouldn't meet with the Russians.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's very few people in my life, him, Elon, David Sachs, John Brockman, very few people have supported me as much as those folks. I mean, I know I'm a huge debt.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “It seems like he wants to break himself. And that book is amazing. And the audiobook is amazing when he's talking about how fat he was and how he just had to go and keep running and his legs are broken and he's just super pain and he just goes through it. It's really inspiring.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “But he seems to be They do for outside of writing books and being inspirational? Does he actually train people or like culture?”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “If you want that, if you want to go to Navy SEAL school, you're going to be in pain and they're going to put that hose in your face while you're underwater with your hands tied behind your back in the pool and you're going to be choking and you may have to do CPR on you. And like every couple of years, tragically, somebody dies in Navy Sales School.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “And then, if the market crashes again, everybody feels like an idea again, the cycle starts again. So you are now, as a founder, you are now inserting yourself into that casino. And now you've got all these other forces pushing and pulling. And you're growing, let's say your company was growing 50%. You feel like, wow, I'm successful. I made a million dollars last year and now I'm doing a million and a half. And the first thing a VC is going to say to you is, how do we triple? We're growing too slow.”

    2021-02-15 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #161 – Jason Calacanis: Startups, Angel Investing, Capitalism, and Friendship · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source